Lomborg: uses irrational name-calling and denies the evidence

It was self-contradictory, baseless name-calling from a formerly sensible writer.

Rational?

Lomborg and Gore are not so far apart

The only rational response to climate change is to use empirical, observable evidence. Rational people can point to results from 28 million radiosondes, 6000 boreholes, 30 years of satellites, 3000 ARGO ocean diving thermometers, raw data from thousands of surface thermometers, as well 800 peer reviewed references which include studies of corals, caves, pollen grains, ocean floor sediments, ice cores, and diatoms.

Lomborg is happy to call these rational people names, but irrationally doesn’t appear to have read their arguments. His method of quoting scientific studies, which was so successful on other topics, has come unstuck on climate science. He doesn’t realize that the US government poured $79 billion dollars into demonstrating one theory, but next to nothing to research, audit, or question that theory. He’s been tripped up by the skewing effect of monopolistic funding.

Far from being rational or scientific, he accepts the opinions of the Scientific Gods at the IPCC, and ignores the empirical evidence

Far from being rational or scientific, he accepts the opinions of the Scientific Gods at the IPCC, and ignores the empirical evidence. It’s a step back to the stone age. In a rational world — when the evidence disagrees with the opinions — scientists toss out the fake Gods and go with the data.

His ignorance of the scientific side of the debate is one thing, but the hypocritical name-calling is quite something else. He calls it juvenile pie-throwing, but he still uses the word denier, specifically saying the skeptics deny the “ever-mounting evidence”. My challenge to Lomborg is to name one paper we deny. He’s adopted an Orwellian misnomer. The term is designed to denigrate and dehumanize, why does he play that game?

And for those who think the term “alarmist” is name-calling, think again. It’s an adjective and it fits. The so-called deniers don’t deny anything, but an alarmist is someone who wants to alarm us. Can anyone think of a better term for what the IPCC do?

The skeptics of man-made global warming are the largest whistle-blowing group of scientists there has ever been.

Thousands of pro-bono scientists are speaking out and rising up in protest. Lomborg isn’t aware that the scientists he rudely calls deniers include two skeptical Nobel Physics Prize winners, four elite Astronauts, hundreds of eminent scientists, and 9000 PhD’s (no that’s not a misprint). He dismisses them all as “one group of activists”. The irony is that he, the political science graduate has jumped into a the shallow end of a science debate and sided with the name-calling bullies. It’s a parody of common sense.

As for the “ever mounting evidence” — if Lomborg can name the paper that backs up his catastrophic claims, he’ll be the man-of-the-moment for all the IPCC scientists (because they can’t). Bring on the ticker tape parade, and give this man a PhD in climate science! He will have achieved something the fourth assessment report did not.

Lomborg has really thrown down the gauntlet. He thinks there is evidence to support his cause.

For so-called alarmists pointing out what’s wrong with drastic carbon cuts is somehow tantamount to denying the reality of climate change, while so-called deniers lambast anyone who accepts the scientific evidence supporting this “mythical” problem

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Lomborg has fallen for the shell game. He isn’t aware that all the empirical evidence named in the IPCC fourth report supports only one third of the temperature rise that the IPCC “projects”.

All the lab studies show that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and the physics suggests that if it doubles, we might get as much as 1.2 degrees warmer (ask James Hansen, the 1.2 degrees is his figure). The black hole in the climate-science-kitchen is that all the larger projections: the 3.5 degrees, 6 degrees or 12 degree forecasts, all rely on climate models, which are unverified, and indeed known to be wrong. The models amplify the small warming caused by CO2, but virtually all the data from the real world suggests that the feedback mechanisms dampen the direct effects rather than amplifying them. Skeptics merely ask for observable evidence that supports the assumption of long term amplification.

So yes, the sad truth for Lomborg’s notable career, is that the growing number of skeptics are mostly rational luke-warmers who know more about the scientific details than he does. The peer reviewed evidence is pointing at a mere half a degree of warming due to a doubling of CO2, and rationally there are far greater environmental problems we ought to address.

Lomborg not only denies the physical evidence of the climate but he denies the socio-political evidence of corruption that has been uncovered since he produced his book.

Lomborg not only denies the physical evidence of the climate but he denies the socio-political evidence of corruption that has been uncovered since he produced his book. The so-called scientists Lomborg has faith in have been caught blatantly hiding their data, avoiding FOI’s, manipulating the peer review process, and making “adjustments” that they can’t explain. No amount of whitewashing changes the implications of publicly paid workers who use tricks to hide declines. No one needs a PhD to know that placing thermometers close to hot concrete will affect the results.

It would be good to reduce our dependency on oil, and it does make sense to research alternate energies, but denying the evidence and making policy for the wrong reason is a Stygian trap with collateral damage. Let’s reduce our reliance on middle eastern oil, but not spend a cent on stuffing carbon dioxide, the atmospheric fertilizer, back in the ground. If we ignore the evidence, we won’t deal with the endemic disabling problems in our institutions. Our universities have fallen into a decrepit state where they no longer teach logic and reason in most science courses, many journalists think that being activists is the same as “reporting the news”, and the BOM and CSIRO think it’s ok to make “adjustments” which ramp up the temperature trend by 20 – 40%. Worse, they call those “adjustments” neutral, and won’t explain why they made them. There is no official body to audit them and the media refuse to say anything, so they get away with the deception.

And while our research institutes are crippled with monopolistic funded to find a particular crisis, they are not producing the best research, and are not finding the answers that produce long range forecasts to help our farmers, or plan our urban infrastructure. If officials had paid more attention to the 30 year pacific cycles they might have predicted the end of the droughts and the return of the La Nina rainfalls on the East Coast of Australia. Had they done so, we could have used money to teach science properly at schools instead of building unnecessary desalination plants. How much richer our nation would have been.

Lomborg joins the PR campaign of corrupt scientists, big bankers, and big bureaucrats. It’s a shame. We need common sense more than ever, instead, Lomborg is just throwing names and swallowing assumptions.

It’s a strange world when a non-scientist feels confident calling the thousands of scientists who disagree with him banal names, especially so when he describes the name-calling as juvenile.

…

This article was provided to The Australian last Monday night.

The national broadsheet can find space to print hypocritical name-calling, but this time, not the rational reply?

In the UK ,as Australia, climate change is ingrained into politics, media and the lobby groups, it is going to take years to shift focus.

In the UK an Alarmist has just been made a peer for their work on climate change…

A 10:10 Campaign (No Pressure video) board member, involved in creating the UK Climate Change act, is now a labour peer. She is also a founding member of Sandbag, campiagning for Co2 emissions trading in the EU

Comments on the bottom of the article are almost entirely in opposition to Lomborg – this one is typical:Good book plug. Or film plug, or whatever. Cleaner, cheaper energy would be nice. But not the hugely inefficient and obscenely expensive and subsidized wind farms. Go nuclear for electricity and hydrogen fuel cells for cars. Problem solved. P.S. With CO2 levels rising and the planet cooling for the past 10 years I still don’t buy the Global Warming Alarmism Theory.

Here’s my conspiracy theory: the head alarmists know that a permanent cooling is on the way. If they can get their carbon reduction and wealth redistribution schemes in place in a hurry then they will inevitably be proven correct. They will be worshipped as the saviours of earth and its inhabitants for centuries.

Having read The Skeptical Environmentalist I can say that he was always soft on AGW, and his position hasn’t really changed all that much. He believed in it then, he just didn’t think it was worth the money. He believed that the money could have been spent more wisely to correct problems that were far less expensive and sure to work. That is, in my opinion, an irrational view. If you really believe in the AGW alarmism and the consequences they predicted; then how could you possibly believe that the money could have been spent on anything wiser?

The rest of his work was very impressive and generated serious professional and personal attacks; which he weathered wonderfully. Even though he never seemed to get the AGW stuff right I can’t understand this transformation after going through what he went through. It does seem a bit irrational. Is “celebrity” really the reason for all of this? Has anyone asked him?

22 Nov: NYT: Evan Lehmann: Republicans Learn the Perils of Being Politically Incorrect on Climate Change
Defeat came for Republican Rep. Bob Inglis because he slid to “Satan’s side.”…
“The most enduring heresy was just saying that climate change was real,” he said. “That was the one that was most damaging, I’m convinced.”
“For many conservatives, it became the marker that you had crossed to Satan’s side — that you had left God and gone to Satan’s side on climate change,” he added, “because many evangelical Christians in our district would say that it’s up to God to determine the length of Earth, and therefore, you are invading the province of God.”…
“It really is odd to realize … that gee, there are not many of ya. It’s so weird,” Inglis said, calling it a “small fraternity” of Republican believers.
One of them is Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), a physicist who is retiring at year’s end after serving eight terms in the House. Sometimes he reviews climate science with curious Republican colleagues. Usually, though, they take their cues from ideological sources.
“Of course there’s no shortage of people out there who deny climate change, or any of its impacts, so they listen to those folks,” Ehlers said in an interview. “They seem to respect my opinion, but when push comes to shove, they’re going to go with folks who deny climate change.”…
But politicians’ opposition to climate change is not a political position taken for purposes of re-election in conservative districts, both Inglis and Ehlers say. Rather, it is about the money.
“How many know better and aren’t saying anything?” Inglis asked of his colleagues who deny climate…
Inglis, for his part, continues to press for a carbon tax. He believes a $15 charge on each ton of carbon dioxide applied now, rising to $100 by 2040, will diminish oil and coal dependence while expanding nuclear and renewable fuels…
The Bipartisan Policy Center released a report this week on how to slash the deficit that suggested a carbon tax beginning at $23 a ton would “increase economic efficiency.”
The analysis was overseen by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former White House Budget Director Alice Rivlin, who served under President Clinton. The carbon tax, however, was not included in the panel’s final recommendations…
(Inglis) “I believe that we can get a revenue-neutral tax swap,” he said, using his carefully selected name for a carbon tax. “Not out of this next Congress, and maybe not out of the next one. But down the road, we’re going to get there.”http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/11/22/22climatewire-republicans-learn-the-perils-of-being-politic-3326.html

lehmann actually has republicans denying “climate” itself, not even “climate change” as per usual!

22 Nov: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: US climate scientists fight back after year of scepticism
In a letter to the Washington Post, Sherwood Boehlert, a retired Republican congressman who once headed the house science committee, wrote: “I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party’s line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities.”…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/22/us-climate-scientists-fight-back

now tell me where are the Opposition in Australia every time there’s a new revelation about the CAGW scam or a new economic negative concerning the way it is being implemented?

Pat # 8 . It seems there is just an on going “rev up” with the MSM / pro AGW crowd before Cucan. Given Monbiot was saying months ago that he had given up hope on Cucan , I can only conclude that this is all desperation.

I believe Lomberg has a new film/doco coming out so he is just creating noise for the sake of it. Similarly Oreskes has a book to promote.

From an economist’s perspective the one thing that was a glaringly obvious ommission in Lomborg’s piece was the source of the 0.2% of GDP funding required for all his green technology research. He does not address how this is to be raised. I imagine he is thinking a tax on carbon, but here we go again, assuming that the Government is better at picking winners than the private sector.

This is where the libertarian thinking comes in that Oreskes was so fond of (yes, that is sarcasm)… for some strange reason she thinks that Big Government is better at making market decisions than the private sector. Sadly this is something that has been proven wrong time and again, but she is oblivious to that history. Typical intellectual, ivory tower mindset (she has spent very little time in the real world, like much of the audience last night at her talk).

Do I believe Government should step in at times when there is demonstrated market failure? Absolutely! But the onus is to demonstrate that there has been market failure in the first place and then act. It’s this strange concept called evidence-based policy-making. This differs quite a bit from the policy-based evidence-making we see from the IPCC. This is the real problem… putting the whole equation arse about.

30 Oct: UK Daily Mail: Alex Brummer: COMMENT ALEX BRUMMER: Rocky flight for green taxes
Air passenger duty is a nice little earner for the government producing £2billion of tax a year. It also has been an easy hit for successive Chancellor’s because it can be disguised as a ‘green tax’. But it is not that at all.
As Alistair Darling acknowledged in Newcastle this week, the airline industry and travellers are being penalised to help pay for the enormous cost of rescuing rotten banks. ‘We need to raise money to pay for some of things we have done … Northern Rock has cost a lot of money.’ …http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1224195/COMMENT-ALEX-BRUMMER-Rocky-flight-green-taxes.html

In global climatology temperatures are computed from given radiation intensities, and this exchanges cause and effect. The current local temperatures determine the radiation intensities and not vice versa.

Combine those with the model distortion by the circular reasoning of CO2 forcing, what do get?

I have been pondering this for some time now, and it seems to me that the root issue in the new religion of AGW – and indeed the root issue in all aspects of the so-called “progressive” movement – can be identified as egotism.

Because it has so many of the classical features of a religion, Progressivism offers a form of “salvation” for the true believer. All first-world Western guilt at being the recipient of so much freedom and wealth can be exorcised by faith and faith alone, [i]sola fide[/i]. By faith alone is the believer saved from the damnation of guilt. And those who oppose this religion are rejected in much the same way that fundamentalist religion treats non-believers, to be demonised as “infidels” – those who “deny” the revelation of “truth”. The true believer thus saves his ego from the hell of guilt, and swaggers about with a very insolent Cheshire-cat grin, sneering at the damned sinners.

These egotists, smug in their certainty of the possession of the “one true way”, call people like me “deniers”. They say I deny the obvious revelation of the “science”, and want to lump me in with “flat-earthers”, or simply suggest that I am “anti-science”. But the fact is I love science.

Do I oppose the scientific truth of immunisation? – no. Do I deny the carcinogenic properties of tobacco? – no. Do I deny plate-tectonics? – no. Do I reject the theory of evolution? – no. I am 100% pro science. And if someone (anyone) could demonstrate the truth of AGW to me, I would be on the streets immediately, pleading governments for decisive action.

I am not a scientist, but I am intelligent enough to follow scientific graphs and arguments. And the ONLY reason I reject the theory of AGW is that there is quite simply NO PROOF of its reality, and indeed lots of evidence to suggest that the thesis is entirely wrong.

There is a real art to shifting position with the changes in intellectual fashion. In the sphere of government, the French seem to have produced some real masters: Talleyrand, Fouche, Mitterand.

I wonder if Lomborg, in his bright, communicative way, is proving to be much less adept than Judith Curry. Curry buries all debate and contradiction under truckloads of molasses-like verbiage, till the critic simply surrenders through sheer fatigue. While promoting the need to communicate, it’s the last thing she will ever do. Lomborg takes the communication cant seriously, and that’s his problem.

Of those who have made a massive reputation for themselves through climate alarmism, only a few will survive. Joseph Fouche went from blowing aristocrats apart at the height of the French Revolution to becoming a duke. So who will be the Fouche of climate?

It’s edifying to watch their manoeuvres and transformations…though a little expensive.

I read an attrocious piece of non-economics today and thought I would research the author somewhat, Professor John Cole. It turns out he is Director (Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development) at the University of Southern Queensland:

“Defenders of coal keep pointing to Australia’s relatively small emissions impact (1.5% of total global GHG) as a reason not to move early or unilaterally in forcing a carbon price or emissions abatement target. Of course conveniently overlooked in the argument is that the nation’s principal carbon impact is increasingly being developed as exported emissions to China and India.”

The suggestion here being that we (Australia) should be accountable for exported hydrocarbons and their impact overseas… Given that he is an early adopter of “triple bottom line thinking” this kind of claptrap commentary is hardly surprising but completely impractical to implement.

This is essentially saying that Australia, the gunshop owner, should be accountable for the murder by China when she uses the gun (coal) purchased from Australia. I make the analogy extreme, but it serves to show how ridiculous a concept it is.

We have a hard enough time trying to account for our own GHGs without worrying about what another country does. The only way you would be able to account for global interactions like that would be with a global, over-arching, international agency monitoring all facets of international industry and emissions. Perish the thought*.

* I guess I am one of those crazy, sees reds under the bed, libertarians Oreskes is trying to warn us all about, who sees a New World Order type Governmental conspiracy around every corner. But seriously folks, if every country were to be accountable for it’s own emissions only, do you honestly believe no one would cheat in their reportage of said emissions? If you answered yes to that question I have some great shares in the CCX for you… they are a steal right now!

PS> As the reader who waded through all that now realises, the Oreskes lecture left me in a doubly cynical mood

Last fall I read an article where he quoted Lindzen to support his own position. In an email to his office I showed that he had misrepresented Lindzen’s position. After Copenhagen, his secretary replied that she had sent my email on to him but that he was very busy and not to expect a reply.

It is the very busy part, busy trying to sell his positon, that, I think, caused him to misrepresent a ‘skeptic’s’ postiton in support of his own.

I do not attribute bad motives to him, but rather a self-imposed frantic schedule that leaves big gaps in the “rational.”

22 Nov: Reuters: Timothy B. Hurst: World Bank Loans to Energy Projects, Both Clean and Dirty, Soar
Recent loans for coal-fired power plants is evidence to the fact that the World Bank is still in the business of loaning money for massive construction projects with the most favorable cost-benefit ratio — with benefits measured almost entirely in terms of economic benefits…
World Bank loans for fossil fuel projects topped $6.3 billion in the fiscal year ending in June, $4.4 billion of which was for the construction of new coal-fired power plants, according to the Bank Information Center, a Washington-based watchdog group.
One project in particular, the 4,800-megawatt Medupi Station in South Africa and will emit about 26 million tons of carbon dioxide annually until roughly 2050. Together with another World Bank project, India’s Tata Ultra Mega plant, set to go online in 2012, the two projects will emit 50 million tons of carbon dioxide annually — roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions of the country of Ireland…
And heavy criticism for the $3.75 billion loan for the South African Medupi Station — criticism that included a protest from the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Italy in the form of abstaining to vote on the approval of the loan — has led the World Bank to take steps to present the institution as pro-renewables, including the hiring of an internationally-renowned clean energy expert to help shape strategy.
In September, the World Bank announced that Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley would be the bank’s first chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency…http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS319760795820101122

22 Nov: Businessweek: Alistair Holloway: South African Coal Price Highest in Two Years on Chinese Demand
A cold wave is sweeping across China from the west, lowering temperatures in northern regions by as much as 18 degrees Celsius today, the National Meteorological Center said. That may spur coal demand. Power-station coal prices at Qinhuangdao port, a Chinese benchmark, rose today to the highest since Jan. 25, data from the China Coal Transport and Distribution Association show…
Buyers have increasingly turned to South Africa for coal because supplies from Indonesia have been hampered by rainfall and Australian shipments face infrastructure bottlenecks, she said…
India may not be able to meet its own coal needs. Demand in the year starting April 2011 is forecast at 713.2 million tons, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told parliament today. Production in the next financial year is estimated at 591.8 million tons, he said…http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-22/south-african-coal-price-highest-in-two-years-on-chinese-demand.html

I think Jo has been a bit tough on Bjorn.
He fancies himself as an honest broker trying to mediate in what seems to me to be a very lopsided pie-fight.

…for nearly 20 years, one group of activists argued in the face of ever-mounting evidence that global warming was a fabrication…
….so-called deniers lambast anyone who accepts the scientific evidence supporting this “mythical” problem…

No serious critic of IPCC science denies that the Earth has warmed since the Little Ice Age as well it might, since the LIA was probably one of the coldest episodes during this interglacial so far.

And I don’t know what the “ever-mounting evidence” is, the IPCC first assessment report (1990) concluded that:

….the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability; alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming. The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more…

Twenty years and $73 billion later and the above statement just about sums up the present state of ‘the science’.

….acknowledging that man-made climate change is real but arguing that carbon cuts are not the answer amounts to staking out a middle ground in the global warming debate that means being attacked from both sides….

I can’t disagree with that. — it’s the anthropogenic share of the warming that’s the main point.

And I can’t disagree with the notion of developing as many sources of cheap energy as possible but not at the expense of fossil fuel users and certainly not as a response to an increasingly unlikely ‘problem’.

All the lab studies show that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and the physics suggests that if it doubles, we might get as much as 1.2 degrees warmer (ask James Hansen, the 1.2 degrees is his figure).

But even the so-called science of global warming is based on the assumption (i.e. GUESS) that all of the warming since 1850 was caused by increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. We could just as logically say that the increased atmospheric CO2 levels are due to increased temperatures! Furthermore, Hansen and his fellow-alarmists don’t mention that we had the Little Ice Age that ended in the 1830′s! When an Ice Age ends, what normally happens to climate, Prof. Hansen?

CO2 levels have been rising since the 1850′s, even though fossil fuel consumption was miniscule until after the 1940′s. And temperatures have both risen and fallen during this period. When temperature rises, AGW types shill that its man made climate change. When it falls, it’s just “noise”. B/S Prof Hansen!

“It’s a strange world when a non-scientist feels confident calling the thousands of scientists who disagree with him banal names, especially so when he describes the name-calling as juvenile.”

Isn’t that an argument from authority of the sort that warmists have been trotting out for years?
I don’t disagree with you Jo, but don’t let’s get carried away.
___________________________________________________
@ Jim: November 23rd, 2010 at 12:36 am
“Lomborg is a wannabe celebrity first and foremost. Whatever it takes to be on the celebrity circuit.”

That just about sums up what I thought of him the first time he came to my notice during his Skeptical Environmentalist period. I even agreed at the time with James Hansen’s harsh critique of the book.

The alarmists cannot win their argument on the basis of science or logic, so they must argue it on the basis of volume.

Their name-calling and labelling of their opponents doesn’t change the fact that the global warming industry has not provided empirical, physical proof that global warming is significant, harmful and man-made. Their case almost invariably retreats to computer models and similar constructs to explain their version of reality. Global warming is a great theory – pity it doesn’t work.

On the other hand, the climate realists have demonstrated instances where the AGW theory is at odds with concrete, real-world evidence. Which world do we live in?

My instinct is to view the alarmist hand-waving as a desperate attempt to distract the public from a simple truth that is at odds with their ideology. When the alarmists begin to shout, then we need to start whispering.

When I read this article on a saturday morning I decided for good that Lomborg is batting for someone. He has relentlessly pushed for a major expansion of renewable research and a dying AGW movement doesn’t help him at all. I think he is also pushing a barrow. He occupies a very unusual place in this debate these days.

1. fill with apprehension or alarm; cause to be unpleasantly surprised;
2. warn or arouse to a sense of danger or call to a state of preparedness;
(synonym) alert(hypernym) warn(hyponym) wake(derivation) dismay, consternation.

However, fear is an emotion, and as such will dissipate in time, as is now being witnessed.

What would the outcome be if you knew a big global freeze is coming?
Food production…warmth…shelter…war?
What would our governments do?

I think I know how most “brilliant public thinkers” and the “Main Theme Media” would tackle that:

First they would suggest that the problem was caused by human interaction with nature.

They would then call upon the UN to organize a world wide tax scheme to fund the solution.

They would also send out endless media releases explaining how the best scientists have looked at the problem and the consensus is that the situation “is much worse than we first thought” (dire, in fact). And that the Precautionary Principle calls for drastic expensive solutions.

Politicians would raise funds and campaign on the fact that they now best how to solve the problems associated with Global Freeze.

Skeptics of AGF would be muted by the “Peer system” and silenced by the media. Blogs would pop up. John Brookes, MattB, and a host of other Freezists would proclaim that skeptics ARE Deniers!

Defeat came for Republican Rep. Bob Inglis because he slid to “Satan’s side.”…
“The most enduring heresy was just saying that climate change was real,” he said. “That was the one that was most damaging, I’m convinced.”

I think Bob Inglis is wrong. Climate change wasn’t in the driver’s seat on Election Day. At best it was just a part of the reason he lost. The big issues were spending and taxation. Inglis condemns himself right out of his own mouth by saying he favors a carbon tax over cap-and-trade. He was on the wrong side of the bigger issue and it bit him hard. Justly so!

Yep, I can just see some sort of punitive super-tax campaign coming to fiscally discourage the employment of those “nasty PV panels” which suck so much vital warming energy out of the troposphere & accellerate the “BIG FREEZE”.( with the projected Maunder-like TSI down turn)

Those selfish inconsiderate bastards will be responsible for crop failures, food wars, ferral polar bears in Hawaii & the end of bikini models!

On average world temperature is ~+15 deg C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect ~33 deg C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at ~-18 deg C.

Running the numbers by translating the agents causing the Greenhouse Effect into degrees centigrade:
Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = ~ 31.35 deg C
Other Greenhouse Gases GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65 deg C
CO2 is 75% of the effect of all accounting for the enhanced effects of Methane, Nitrous Oxide and other GHGs = ~1.24 deg C
Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than ~93%
Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = ~0.087 deg C
the USA contribution to CO2 is ~20% equals = 17.6 thousandths deg C
Australia’s contribution is ~1.2% = 1.11 thousandths deg C

As closing all the carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than -0.09 deg C, how can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions and draconian taxes are able to limit warming to only + 2.00 deg C?

So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic. If this number is even close to the right ballpark, the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility and reducing water needs of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater prosperity for human development and much more food for the growing world population. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.

Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. It remains absolutely clear that our planet is vastly damaged by many human activities such as:
environmental pollution.
over fishing.
forest clearance.
industrial farming.
farming for bio-fuels .
and other habitat destruction.

Yes there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
security of supply
increasing scarcity
rising costs
their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.

The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation). Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French electricity prices and CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.

However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades. And as power stations face closure the UK lights may well go out in the winter 2016 if not before.

All because CO2 based Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming has become a state sponsored religion.

Splattergate is classic NOBLE CAUSE CORRUPTION. It is probably the most egregious piece of publicity ever produced in the Man-made Global Warming cause. This short film shows doubting schoolchildren being blown up and having their entrails spread over their classmates because they may have been less than enthusiastic about the CAUSE. Any misrepresentation is valid in the Cause and any opposition however cogent or well qualified is routinely denigrated, publically ridiculed and as we now see literally terminated.

Do you read anything significant into the fact that Gina Reinhart has bought 10% of TV Channel 10? Do you think it might be a step to try to balance the “media” in some way? Is she as fed up with the ABC as many other Aussies?

One quote that is my new favourite is that made by Yvo de Boer, secretary-general of the IPCC: “I have never known a credible emissions reduction without nuclear power.”

The Alarmists are loosing the battle over the anthropogenic impacts on climate. But they thing they all seem to hate more than carbon (except in its crystalline form), is nuclear energy generation. They hate it on two counts: firstly, “it is dangerous – look at Chernobyl”; and secondly, uranium is already traded on an established market that they cannot control.

So I think that now might be a good time to go onto the offensive — why don’t we start lobbying Government for Australia to set a target to have 80% of its power generated from nuclear by, say 2030?

That would be an appropriate coup-de-gras, do you not think?

Disclosure: I have a financial interest in nuclear technology — I own a diving watch with fluorescent numbers on it.

The only thing I would ask you to consider is the geopolitical and demographical roots of this new religion.

The current upsurge in environmental activism started in Europe, and the timing reasonably correlates with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I am still uncertain which was the cause, and which was the effect. I just note the correlation. I also note that the soviet collapse actually had a significant affect in shifting the political spectrum in Europe considerably towards the left.

Socialism is the ideal philosophical structure for political activism – the socialist ideal invites, or even demands, activism.

Also, as I have said before, most climate alarmists are of an age that see their parents (the post-war baby-boomers) as being highly irresponsible in their use of resources, and wastage in energy. And since it is part of the human psyche for children to rebel against the attitudes of their parents, that further fuels the environmental religion.

Not to worry though. A new generation is starting to enter University, and the workforce. A generation that is ultra-connected with a lists of friends in the hundreds, rather than the tens. They also have a total aversion to anything that looks like advertising; and that includes a strong aversion to propaganda.

One of the real benefits of the climate change scam is that the propaganda has been so overdone that it ceased to work its magic with those savvy enough to recognise it. And that would be the Party Generation, and their grandparents.

There is another issue the Western world would almost certainly have to significantly increase taxation or significantly reduce government services and general largess.
The elephant in the room is the global financial crisis, it has to be paid for.
Taking out a second credit card to meet repayments on the first one, doesn’t solve the problem it merely delays the repayments.

All Western politicians know that when push comes to shove the majority of voters squeal harder over a reduction in services and government largess then they do over increasing taxes.Mainly because taxes are paid directly to the government by the employers, so that the average employee never actually sees or really relates to just how much tax they pay.

So we will have increased taxes it’s just a case of trying to find a politically acceptable name for them. Climate change covers a multitude of stuff ups and general incompetence by the political classes. Climate change is something that can be blamed on OUR lifestyle.

For example
In 2004 I was reading a report by the person who surveyed the site of the Wivenhoe Dam in Brisbane I think the report was written in about 1973 and in it the surveyor clearly stated, that based on long-term rainfall records and the population growth of Brisbane from 1950 to 1970 the Wivenhoe would supply Brisbane water needs until approximately 2005 therefore construction of the next dam would need to start in about 1995.

Just as I finished reading the report I looked up at the TV and here was Peter Beattie being questioned about the very real probability that Brisbane will run out of water in 2005.
Beattie looked squarely at the camera and and earnestly said “This is climate change no one could have predicted this”.

Growing up in a particular age in the US south, the term ‘demier’ always bugged me. Now I recognize why. ‘denier’ is the AGW community equivalent of the word ‘ni**er’. It is designed to silence the one so named. It is designed to dehumanize and delegitimize the victim. It is designed to make anything said by the victim illegitimate. think about it next time you read some smarmy AGW believer dismissing evidence they refuse to acknowledge or an argument they do not like as being from a ‘denier’.

That Lomborg has caved in and moved to the where he of all people now uses the term tells me he is just a pitiful sell out on his part.

As a former SEQ boy I well recall the ALP campaign which ended the Joh era & ushered in the era of Gossnost.

There was a fierce debate about the proposed Wolfdene( if I have spelled the name correctly) Dam.

This was a proposed dam for the Gold Coast hinterland which the ALP campaigned strongly against.

Some considered it to be a significant.

In the recent debate about droughts, SEQ population expansion, water grids & the Traveston/Mary River Dam, I missed any retrospective reference to the Wolfdene proposal & the arguments which surrounded it.

With water as AGW(?) politics is all about power never honestly about the needs of the electorate.

jo -
this is mostly an alarmist piece, which is a must-read. however, the following excerpts are telling:

23 Nov: Bloomberg: Natalie Obiko Pearson: Carbon Math for Treaties and Trade Doesn’t Add Up When Scientists Test Air
‘Pseudo-Commodity’
Joseph Mason, a banking professor at Louisiana State University who specializes in financial crises, says carbon is unique because it isn’t backed by a commodity such as gold or oil that can be seen and touched. Carbon credits get their value with people having faith in them, he says.
“We really are setting up a market from scratch here for this hybridized pseudo-commodity of our own making,” he says.
Anything that raises doubts about the integrity of emissions reductions could potentially damage the market, Mason says.
“If you’re selling oil, you’re actually transferring something tangible,” says Gregg Marland, a staff scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“If somebody lies, somebody loses,” he says. “In a CO2 transaction, you can lie and both win.” The seller gets paid, and the buyer has his credit for compliance. “We’re going to create a situation where both sides can win by cheating,” Marland says…
‘Estimates Are All Guesses’
One recent carbon study shows how far off estimates can be. Afsah’s Performeks compared emissions calculated by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency with those calculated by BP Plc. Both collect energy data and supply it to the public. The difference between the two sets of estimates for 23 nations added up to 2 billion metric tons of CO2 — more than what Russia, the world’s third-largest emitter, spewed from burning fossil fuels in 2008.
The gap shows how widely results can vary depending on how calculations are tweaked and what statistics go into the number crunching, Afsah says.
Even an early supporter of bottom-up calculations says he now sees the drawbacks.
“When it comes down to it, these estimates are all guesses,” says John Bosch, who retired from the EPA in 2009 after 38 years. Bosch’s team designed ways to estimate pollution from oil refineries and petrochemical plants.
‘Everybody in the Game’
Bosch says he left to become a consultant because he was frustrated regulators didn’t require precise measurements. New laser-based instruments make policing emissions possible, he says.
“In the real world, there are huge motivations for everyone to low-ball emissions,” Bosch says. Regulators want to report progress, and polluters want to pay less for permits, he says. “Everybody is in the game.”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-23/climate-change-math-in-treaties-flawed-by-suspect-pollution-calculations.html

Professor Bob Carter has an article in Quadrant Online todayhttp://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/11/bob-carter
Gillard’s climate U-turn
(quoting selectively)
Early in the recent election campaign, Julia Gillard was reported as saying that there would be no tax on carbon (dioxide) while she led the federal government.

Instead, she said, ”What we will do is we will tackle the challenge of climate change”, which turned out to mean the appointment of an assembly of 150 citizens to advise on the ways and means – a suggestion that prompted immediate public derision.

Just before voters went to the polls Ms Gillard again stated categorically: “I rule out a carbon tax”. Of course, that statement was rapidly rescinded after the election of a hung parliament created the political imperative that Labor court the Green and independent members who now held the balance of power.

Making a dramatic U-turn, Ms Gillard rapidly segued to a new policy position. This involved scrapping the idea of a citizen’s assembly and erecting in its place a new Multi-party Committee on Climate Change (MCCC) to advise on policy options, which now again were to include of necessity (hat tip to the Greens) a carbon dioxide tax.

….
The primary question that the MCCC needed to deal with, of course, was whether dangerous climate change is occurring, and if so what policy options might be available to mitigate it? First and foremost then, there was a scientific issue to be resolved.

The committee’s state of mind on that issue was rapidly clarified by Ms. Gillard, who announced on September 27 the starting assumption that a carbon dioxide price was required to reduce “pollution” and to encourage investment in low-emission technologies.
….

The Canberra climate committee is a farce. Whilst its members have been indulging in play school politics, the Canadian Senate, paying attention both to the real science and to the result of the US election, has rejected a Climate Change Accountability Act that called for greenhouse gases to be cut 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. …

The government wants to declare a price on carbon dioxide, and businesses (especially energy suppliers) want certainty. As others before me have pointed out, these twin needs can best be met by allocating a price of $0 per tonne to carbon dioxide emissions – forthwith.

The whole ‘low fact/fact free’ alarmism is really sad and indicative of people who care more about their message than they do about the environment. If they really cared about the environment they should go out and actually do something to make the world a better place for us now rather than peddling useless schemes and policy.

I’ve just put up a post here about how this excessive focus on man made climate change is actually diverting us from dealing with the real environmental problems that we have.

ANOTHER CORRUPT UN ORGANIZATION INVOLVED IN THE GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD…………..

Gillard is not on her own in imposing climate change fraud on Australia. Here is a UN group that collects money from your local council and imposes Agenda 21 on your area without your vote or permission.
They are called “International Council for Environmental Initiatives”. They are unelected and not voted on but they take over all development in councils that agree. They represent the UN and their mission is to impose Sustainability on all regions of the world. That is what they think is sustainable, not what locals know is sustainable.
Wonder how the Victorian bushfires were so bad? I bet these clowns were running the local council agendas.
So Gillard thinks she is safe in imposing a destructive tax based on a scam on Australia because these socialists have been imposing the conditions since 1998.

Here is the link to the contact page for this UN anti Australian treasonous group:-

Seasonal forecasting in Australia
House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation
has spoken!http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/isi/weather/report/front.pdf
Recommendation 1
The Committee recommends that CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology provide to the Australian Government a report with detailed explanatory information as to why a particular dynamic forecasting model or system was chosen for use in Australia. The report should be completed by the end of 2010.
Recommendation 2
The Committee recommends that weather and climate variables and influences, for example, particulates, be identified, thoroughly examined to assess their degree of impact on our weather and climate, and incorporated into forecasting models as necessary. Priority areas for incorporating these variables should be published.

There are 8 recs in total
Interesting to see that Dennis Jensen (he of calling for Royal Commission into the science of AGW) was among the members of the committee

The total influence of the GHG effect is significantly less than 33C. Your -18C number (255K) assumes that clouds and ice are still reflecting power maintaining an artificially high albedo of 0.3, where as the no atmosphere albedo would be the same as the 0.12 measured for the Moon. No GHG effect means no atmosphere, no water vapor and no rain, snow, ice or clouds. Using this value, the no atmosphere surface temperature would be about 270K, or about -3C, making the net GHG effect (all water effects + CO2) only about 18C.

In effect, we can say that the influence of the GHG effect is to both heat and cool. It heats the surface by redirecting a fraction of the power emitted by the surface back to it and cools by increased reflection due to clouds, snow and ice. The cooling can be considered to be the difference between the 255K and 270K, or about 15C.

I warned everyone I know, Lomborg was only trying to re-frame the same failed argument. He was only going to do it with a smile. Think about the number of movies that have been released without so much as a sniff from Hollywood money or theater attention. Now here comes Lomborg and his movie is in theaters across the nation.

Lomborg never seemed like a skeptic to me. The first video I ever saw of him giving a talk on “climate change”, he was pushing for “solutions”…I couldn’t understand why other skeptics considered him to be one. I never trusted him – I think his personality/popularity and his continuing belief that we must DO something (i.e., cut carbon emissions, find “green” solutions) make him a very dangerous man politically speaking.

KR@62; so what is the paper? You mention Mann; let me give you an example of the stupidity and contradiction which sceptics have to deal with in the papers presented as evidence for AGW; Mann was a co-author of this infamous paper which was heralded by the ABC and other sundry nitwits as evidence that Antarctica was warming due to AGW:

I owe you an apology and an explanation. I subscribe to both Business Spectator and Climate Spectator on-line editions. Not a day goes by that the editor of CS does not write a piece about the need or benefit of a carbon tax, the absolute necessity of renewable energy and the perfection of all things IPCC. Hardly a day goes by that I and several stalwarts try to inject some common sense into the discussion. I have tired of dreaming up comment names and usurped your very sensible monicker although the comment is still ascribed to me. I do hope you are not offended.

I am still amazed that regardless of the science repudiating AGW there remains a sizeable and influential group who act as if all is well in the great fraud. CO2 is a pollutant, it just is, don’t you know? Frustration does not begin to explain how I feel.

Jo… This is off topic, but Allan Jones has had an excellent interview with Federal Minster for Water Tony Burke. Bluddy bore it up him in front of the people of Griffith NSW. Reminded him that he is the elected representative and to not take advice from the faceless bureaucrats who know nothing of farming and water.

He also quoted the construction numbers of dams from various countries around the world. We have a pathetic 1 new dam greater than 60 meters in height…. Iran has built 48 new dams!… Libya 9 and a 2500km 2mtr dia pipeline to gravity feed its agriculture…. Our Government is doing nothing, or worse, actively stopping the growth of supply of water for Australians to use. The are stopping the harvest of water that is being wasted when it runs uselessly into the sea… Jones quotes the staggering gigalitres of water just pouring wasted, into the sea every year.

Somewhat off-topic, but there was a public meeting in country Victoria that exposed the Greens candidate as a bit of a dill.
Story here at Vexnews. For the uninitiated, commenters at that site do not observe the proprieties.

No offense taken. I use co2isnotevil so my comments are more easily googleable. If you google my name you get about 90 million hits, although googling ‘george white climate’ does a adequate job of finding me as well.

Which specific numbers would you like to see confirmed? The only numbers I referred to was the current albedo (0.3), the albedo of the Moon (.12) and indirectly. As far as I know, these values are relatively well established.

My real point is that you can’t separate out the effects of H2O absorption from the effects of evaporation, rain, snow, ice and clouds, which are all interconnected as the control plane of the climate system, moreover; as atmospheric water increases, the incremental influence of CO2 becomes diminished owing to substantial overlap between CO2 lines and H2O lines.

The idea that GHG cause a 33C increase (which is widely accepted by warmists) is flawed by a factor of 2 because the cooling effects of water are not accounted for even as the warming effects of GHG absorption are.

As a long-time student of American culture and politics I realize this is the most disturbing Thanksgiving since 1963, albeit for utterly different reasons.

You should know that you have many Australian friends that stand by you on this day and both raise a toast to the America that was and will be again and offer up a solemn prayer of hope, if I may use that much abused noun. You should also surely know that the symptoms you suffer are not yours alone. Our polity is also rotten to the core, if a decade behind and only half as arrogant. Aye, the polity of the whole free world is as decadent and as rotten as it ever been since 1932.

Some great storms lurk on this Thanksgiving day in the mists of our rapidly accelerating future and they have nothing to do with the weather.

It has been a great privilege to get to know so many Australians, even if only what I see here on this blog. We may have different histories, different forms of government and be nearly half a world apart but we are united by at least one fundamental thing. We all have that burning desire to be free.

I’ll probably never make it to Australia. But if I could I’d love to get together with as many of you as possible in a good pub and throw down a pint or two.

And I feel the same way about you in New Zeeland — another beautiful land I’ll never get to.

Lomborg is shaken by climategate. But he still think that the IPCC is the best source of information for him to run his economic calculations on. It is telling, that assuming that the IPCC is correct, doing what Gore and company want, still does not make sense.